Parent Partnership Group

Parent Representatives for Busy Bees in Guiseley

Laura Baxter

I am a busy working mum to Benjamin and Grace, I work in quality assurance at the University of Bradford. Benjamin has been at Busy Beeâ€™s Nursery since March 2014 and Grace since July 2015. They have developed and grown in confidence since starting at nursery and have formed strong relationships with his carers and the other children.

"I wanted to join the Parent Partnership Group to contribute to the ongoing development of the nursery to benefit my children and others. The nursery staff are passionate about their role in the development and care of our children and I feel it is important that as parents we support their work and feedback any positive comments and suggestions for improvement. I would welcome any parents to contact me to discuss feedback that they would like raising through the Parent Partnership Group."

Peter Bedford

I am dad to Monty whostarted the nursery in February '17 and live in Keighley. I've had a varied background from serving in the British Army to working within Yorkshire Ambulance Service to my current role as a Police Officer in Keighley. I think it's important to have a dad as part of the Board to possibly offer a different perspective on any subjects that need to be discussed and endeavour to be an integral member of the team with the wellbeing and development of all the children being key.

Guiseley Parent Partnership

Meeting Minutes – 27th February 2017

Item

Minutes

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Welcome and Intros

Present:

The Bees

Helen Burton & Claire Widdop & Raine Ellis

The Parents

Hannah Lockwood

Sam Hainsworth

Laura Baxter

Apologies from:

Dawn Winkley

Lisa Grimshaw

We have welcomed a new member to the Parent Partnership group, Peter Bedford. Unfortunately he was unable to attend this meeting, but will hopefully join us next time. He has a son who is currently in our baby unit.

N/A

Staff News

Discussed staff changes: Raine is back from maternity leave, and is supporting the baby unit 2 days a week. Claire has stepped back down and is now based in Daffodils full time. Lindsey in Tulips has now gone on maternity leave, and Shaunna is covering her in Tulips (started last month). Sadly Ashleigh has taken on a position closer to home, and will be leaving on 10th March. Emily Dawson is moving from Daffodils to Tulips to take over from Ashleigh as a lot of the children in Daffodils are turning 2, and we felt this would be a smoother transition for the Tulips room.

Lauren has taken on a permanent role within the training department now, so sadly will not be returning to the nursery.

Sandra has come back from maternity leave, and has resumed her role within the kitchen, working every morning.

Becky has moved over to the childcare team from January 2017 and works every afternoon in the Foxgloves room.

We discussed how we are still recruiting for staff in the baby unit as we prepare to have new babies starting in Spring.

Raine is about to embark on a new mobility programme, and will be spending 2 weeks in the Netherlands at another nursery chain, with other staff within the Busy Bees company. During this time Claire will be covering Raine’s role.

N/A

Changes in key person

Parents commented that some children have had a lot of change of key person within the last 18months. We discussed previous staffing issues in babies, and how we are recruiting now for the occupancy increase that is upcoming to prepare for this. Helen discussed about current recruitment and how we are relaying our expectations of consistency and long term staffing early on in the process to help ensure we recruit the most suitable people. Room moves can also play a part in key person changes due to staff not moving across the rooms with their key children. If parents have a preference for a particular key person due to bonding, they are encouraged to come speak to the staff within the room.

Ensure expectations are relayed during recruitment process to try and minimise staff turn over. Where this cannot be helped we are being sensitive to individual parent’s wishes, and speaking to them directly about issues that may affect them.

Car Parking

Parents commented on the length of time the car park has been out of action. We discussed how frustrating this has been for everyone at nursery, and how we are currently waiting for permission from Watson Batty (across the road from nursery) to be able to dig up part of their land to fix our drainage problem. Unfortunately in the mean time we are unable to have the holes in the car park filled in due to the cost, however we will be receiving weekly updates about the car park and ongoing works.

Management will receive weekly updates about the ongoing works in the car park and will inform parents of any major news, and let them know about any works planned.

Trips

We discussed suggestions for the Poppies and Sunflowers trips. The dates have already been set for these: Sunflowers 22nd June, Poppies 6th July. These days have been picked as they are busiest days in nursery. Children in session on these days will be offered the option to go on the trip, and the rest of the places will be offered on a first come first serve basis to children who are not usually in session on that day. This is due to the size of coach available to us.

Any suggestions welcome for the trips. Once suggestions have been gathered, a voting station will be created for each of the trips so children can have their say.

Raine is also to set up a Preschool council with children from both Poppies and Sunflowers.

Entry Door

Parents brought forward an issue with the entry system to the nursery. Parents fed back that sometimes when they are collecting their children they are able to get through the main entry door as other parents are entering or leaving the building, and that there is then nothing stopping them from entering the car park and road. We have discussed before about a railing being installed outside the external door and this is being followed up with estates currently.

We have looked into having our door release button moved higher up to prevent children from reaching this, however we have been advised that this would not be possible due to ensuring we are meeting the needs for disabled access. Signs have been put up about not allowing entry to other persons on the outside of the main door, as well as a sign requesting parents not to allow children to press the door release button, and a sign on the external door asking for this to be kept closed at all times. At this time this is all we are able to do; we have made our compliance team aware of the concerns raised, and we would ask you to share this information as we will in the next newsletter.

Christmas 2016

Feedback from parents that although the activities were really lovely, they were carried out very early on in December. We discussed how we plan the Christmas week early on in the year to ensure staff don’t book holidays that week to help out with the activities we offer. Christmas themed activities should still be ongoing up until the Christmas break. We also discussed about the Christmas production and how this isn’t always a nativity, but sometimes sourcing costumes can be costly.

Although the week for parties and craft mornings has already been set out for Christmas 2017, we will look to ensure Christmas dinner is later on in the month, and ensure rooms are still carrying out themed activities throughout December.

Ask parents if they wish to donate any nativity/Christmas themed costumes to nursery for productions.

Annual Charity

The annual charity for 2017 is Meningitis Now. Discussed possible idea of a charity night and asking parents to sell tickets for this. Suggested a possible venue as Bradford Golf Club in Hawksworth – staff could potentially offer baby sitting services. Ideas so far: Summer stroll at the Tarn with facepainting.

Gather ideas for fundraising activities throughout the year from parents and staff and then organise these.

Home Learning Books

Feedback has been that activities have been set and books sent home, however once returned they have not been issued again. We discussed how we didn’t want parents to feel that they were mandatory and how the ownness would be on the keyperson to know their parents and families and decide how often to issue these. Discussed the purpose of the books being about carrying on interests from home into nursery, and vice versa.

Staff to set 1 activity a month minimum going forward, more often if necessary depending on parents preference.

Fee Increases

Parents felt that the fee increase was quite substantial in 2016. We explained how we do a competitor analysis yearly which helps to inform the company about competitor prices and services they offer. We have found out recently that competitor nurseries are now having to increase their prices to prepare for the 30hrs NEG from September 2017. We discussed how the 30hrs will be implemented here at nursery from September, but we are awaiting details of how this will be done.

Add people who enquire about the 30hrs to the spreadsheet in the office. When we know how we will be delivering the funding, we will hold an information evening to discuss this further.

Signing in and out

Discussed how going forwards parents will be asked to sign their children in on the registers as well as out. This is in line with our updated policies and for security purposes.

This will be shared in our next newsletter.

School Prep

Parents said that they would like more information about what is expected when children start school. We discussed how the background work has already started for the preschool project and we will have an information evening, and then a 2nd parents evening for transition documents to be completed. The project includes lessons, exercise books, PE lessons, packed lunch days etc. We discussed how we don’t do phonics as this varies between schools, and we often have children going to a variety of schools. However we do cover letters and sounds in the literacy card activities that are carried out. We talked about how we contacted a school last year as child was exceeding their milestones, however they wouldn’t help as their school place hadn’t yet been confirmed. All of the above information will be cascaded to parents in an information evening at the end of April.

Hold information evening at the end of April when the preschool projects plans are all confirmed to inform parents about this.

Create a display, like previous years, of which schools the children will be going to once school choices have been published.

Graffiti Wall

We have created a graffiti wall in the foyer for parents to leave their feedback, both positive and things they think we can improve on. So far this has had a few lovely comments put on, but has not been used very much. We discussed about spreading the word to all parents to encourage the use of this. Parents are encouraged to come to a senior member of staff if they have a concern or issue that they would like to raise to ensure it is brought to our attention and dealt with.

Include the graffiti wall in the next newsletter so all parents are aware of this.

Create a ‘you said, we did’ display from this to show how we have used parent feedback to improve our services.

Previous meeting updates

Catering – The menus are now available on the Busy Bees website under the ‘Being Healthy’ section.

Maths Resources – Staff are currently creating a book to showcase the maths resources that were won last year.

New Furniture – Both Poppies and Crocus’s have received their new chairs. Crocuses have also got 2 new tables, and their remaining table along with all of Poppies tables are due to be replaced over the Summer term.

Early Starts – The new system seems to be working well, and we have had no negative feedback so far. The nursery has been flexible with last minute requests and will continue to be as accommodating as possible.

Newsletters – These are being sent out every other month with the invoices.

Letter and Number of the Week – Poppies and Sunflowers have both of these displays and they are changed a minimum of every 2 weeks. These seem to be going down well, and the children are enjoying the related activities.

Millie’s Mark – We have put this idea forward to our training department for them to look into. In the mean time we will continue to access as much first aid training as possible.

Cycle Helmets – We are currently looking into purchasing these.

Next Parent Meeting – June 2017

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